I know there is another thread but is is too crowded for me now. What really floored me when comparing the Photozone reviews was the following difference for the Oly/Panny 14-42 and the Sony 16-50 PZ reviews.

For the 14-42 m4/3 lenses the gist of the text (not the actual quotations ) seemed to me to be: People, these lenses are fine and you are not bothered by distortions. - Incidentally, without correction they do have very severe (6%) distortion, but you will never see this, so forget about it.

The corresponding text summary for the Sony 16-50 mm PZ was more like this: People, this lens is so distorted as to be a nightmare? Almost 7% distortion - it is horrible! (And much later) Oh yes, and by the way there is a way of correcting this so you do not really nead to notice this.

Photozone is kind enough to point out that 20 - 50 mm gives very decent results, but is basically trassh below that. Do they remember what even large and expensive 24 mm (for FF) prime lenses were like for distortion, vignetting and corner softness? Any decent copy of the 16-50 PZ is much better than these used to be. So it is corrected? So what!

And also it is a small and inexpensive lens with the versatility of a good zoom range to boot. What is there to complain about?